It feels fake, or like one of those elaborate internet hoaxes made up by someone with a lot of time on their hands. When David Bowie passed, we all thought his official Facebook page had been hacked – mostly because none of us had known he was sick. When it was first reported back in November that David Lynch was suffering from emphysema and was unable to walk across a room without help, I braced myself.
I don’t put too many people on a pedestal, and I try to stay away from engaging in anything that feels parasocial – but Lynch is just… different. The rules of art and life and society and cinema, whatever is considered the standard, or the norm – it just doesn’t really apply here. Lynch, from the moment he released Eraserhead out into the world, was his own entity. He moved through life with whimsy and joy, and made art that was dark and vivid and terrifying. He wrote a book about transcendental meditation. He founded a screenwriting MFA – which I thought was fake and/or a cult until I met someone who was close to graduation. They told me Lynch would hop in on a Zoom call once a month, say something that would absolutely blow their minds, and then disappear into the ether. They said he was mindblowing even when he wasn’t necessarily trying to be.
